January 1, 2009
Legendary film critic and author Roger Ebert will be honored with the DGA Honorary Life Member Award at the Guild's 61st Annual DGA Awards on January 31, 2009. This prestigious honor is given in recognition of outstanding creative achievement, contribution to the DGA or the profession of directing. Ebert is being honored for more than 40 years of watching, reviewing and loving films and for infusing his reviews with honesty, humor and grace.
"Roger Ebert has devoted his career to sharing his love of film with generations of moviegoers," said DGA President Michael Apted. "In doing so, he's kept directors on their toes for more than 40 years. I am very pleased to welcome him as an Honorary Life Member of the DGA."
"It is a great honor to be chosen by those men and women who are the creators of the art form I love above all others," said Ebert, explaining what it means to him to be honored with the DGA's Honorary Life Member Award.
As a lifelong film critic, Ebert has spent plenty of time analyzing the role of the director. "I have interviewed countless directors, visited many sets and received much of my film education by observing and learning from them," he noted. He believes unions are essential to a fair economy, and said that in addition to serving its role as a labor union, the DGA is also "a guardian of values, a forum for communication, an encourager of young talent, a venue for scholarship, and a means of honoring achievement."
The first film critic to have been honored with a Pulitzer Prize, Ebert began reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967 after having begun his newspaper career as a sports writer. Nearly 10 years later, Ebert began co-hosting the television program that became the pivotal At The Movies With Siskel & Ebert together with his friend and fellow critic Gene Siskel. The pair trademarked their famous phrase "Two Thumbs Up" that served as a guide to moviegoers everywhere. Ebert has often said that the appeal of the program was two guys, who didn't look like they should be on television, sitting in the balcony talking about movies. When Siskel passed away in 1999, Richard Roeper joined the show and the pair continued reviewing films for television audiences until this past summer, when they decided to depart the show after a 33-year run.
Although Ebert lost the ability to speak due to a rare complication of treatment for thyroid cancer in 2006, he continues to publish hundreds of film reviews every year. His reviews are syndicated in more than 200 newspapers. He is also the most-visited movie critic on the Internet and his website, www.rogerebert.com, was named the best film review site of the year by the Online Film Critics' Society. Ebert often states that the Internet has opened the field of film criticism and he actively visits many other movie review sites himself. According to Ebert, the best thing about being a critic is "being able to hail a great film," but the worst thing is "being unable to."
In 1999, Ebert launched the annual "Ebertfest," a film festival which is presented every April at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the historic Virginia Theatre to draw attention to a handful of diverse and eclectic films from all over the world.
Ebert also shares his love of film with students around the country. He has served as a lecturer on film at the University of Chicago Fine Arts Program since 1970. He is also an adjunct professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ebert is known for his sessions conducting shot-by-shot analysis of films at many institutions including the University of Colorado, the University of Hawaii, the University of Virginia, the University of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution and the Canadian Center for the Advanced Study of Film, winning the 2001 Video Premiere Award for Best Audio Commentary for the shot-by-shot commentary tracks he recorded for the DVD of Citizen Kane. He's also done commentary tracks for the DVDs of Dark City, Floating Weeds, Casablanca, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. True Ebert fans know that he actually wrote the screenplay for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in consultation with Director Russ Meyer in 1970, the first of several campy films based on his screenplays.
Ebert is the author of 17 books, including Scorsese by Ebert; Awake in the Dark; The Great Movies, volumes I and II; 20 annual volumes of Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook; Your Movie Sucks; Two Weeks in the Midday Sun: a Cannes Notebook; I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and the Norton anthology Roger Ebert's Book of Film.
Among his many other critic duties, Ebert has served as critic for WLS/ABC in Chicago from 1983-2003; as host of the ABC live pre-Academy Awards show; and as co-host of the IFC coverage of the Cannes Film Festival awards.
In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, Ebert was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005; by the American Society of Cinematographers in 2003; and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Colorado and the American Film Institute.
When asked if there was anything else that he would like to add to this interview, Ebert quoted a classic. "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille," he said.
Ebert lives in Chicago with his wife, trial attorney Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert. The Honorary Life Member Award will be presented to Ebert at the DGA Awards ceremony on Saturday, January 31, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
Previous DGA Honorary Life Membership Award Recipients
William M. Brady - 2009 Robert B. Aldrich Award
Kim Kurumada - 2009 Frank Capra Achievement Award
Scott Berger - 2009 Franklin Schaffner Achievement Award